Unlocking India’s Biogas Potential for a Sustainable Energy Future
India’s vast organic waste resources offer immense biogas and compressed biogas (CBG) potential that remains largely untapped. Biogas can address energy poverty, reduce fossil fuel imports, cut emissions, improve soil health, and enhance waste management. Despite government initiatives like SATAT, institutional silos and financing gaps hinder progress. A coordinated national mission and policy reforms are essential to integrate biogas as critical infrastructure, enabling economic, environmental, and social benefits.
As India aims for a $5 trillion economy and net-zero emissions by 2070, biogas and its upgraded form, compressed biogas (CBG), represent an underutilized energy opportunity derived from abundant organic waste such as agricultural residue, municipal solid waste, cattle dung, and sewage. Biogas production via anaerobic digestion can provide clean cooking fuel, transport fuel, electricity, and cooling solutions, while also producing nutrient-rich bio-slurry that could offset significant fertilizer subsidies and improve soil health.India currently generates over 700 million tonnes of agricultural residue and 150 million tonnes of municipal solid waste daily. However, much of this waste is burned or left to decompose, releasing potent methane emissions and missing the chance to generate clean energy. Government efforts like the SATAT program target 5,000 CBG plants by 2025, yet only about 95 are operational. Similarly, sewage treatment plants largely neglect biogas recovery despite their potential.Shifting 40 million rural households to biogas could save billions in LPG subsidies, reduce stubble burning and pollution, and create rural enterprises. Biogas can also support energy resilience by providing dispatchable power for peak demand and offering alternatives to fossil fuels in transport and cooling, particularly when integrated with solar energy.The article stresses that biogas must be mainstreamed as essential infrastructure through improved regulation, financing, and institutional coordination. Proposals include launching a National Mission on Decentralised Bioenergy, integrating bioenergy with agricultural and waste management programs, and incentivizing biogas plant development in rural and urban areas. Aligning policies, enhancing private sector participation, and enabling community ownership models could unlock biogas’s full potential, delivering climate benefits, economic savings, and sustainable livelihoods across India.
